The recent crisis at the border surrounding so-called “family separation” policies has been a clarifying moment. We can now, once and for all, clearly distinguish between the people who really want to solve our illegal immigration crisis and those who want to utilize this national security issue for political grandstanding, to gain power.
Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) bill looks to be the best and fastest solution. It mandates that families who immigrate illegally must be kept together; it authorizes new temporary shelters, doubles the number of federal immigration judges and provides for expedited processing of asylum cases to ensure cases are decided promptly and families don’t live in detention facilities for longer than necessary.
The fact of the matter is, many on the center-right would prefer that families, when it is verifiable, stay together during deportation hearings and then be deported together.
Thankfully, President Trump signed an executive order to stop separation of families at the border. But it's not a long-term solution. Congress does have to act.
Yet critics like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) are dead set against such solutions. He and his Democratic cronies are suggesting that President Trump has the legal authority to immediately stop the separate detention of parents and their children at the border.
Rather than realize he’s part of a coequal branch of government, Schumer is rejecting all responsibility to manage the crisis at the border and, instead, would rather have these policies continue.
Republicans should call Schumer’s bluff and pass Cruz’s bill. Put the question to Democrats: Are you willing to let the separation of parents from their children continue to score political points? Apparently the answer is “yes.”
This entire episode has really shown what Democrats and their allies in the media believe as the week dragged on: They see no purpose in immigration laws and favor open-border policies.
For proof of that, consider Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-Calif.) proposed legislation in which illegal immigrants, even those potentially guilty of terrorism, couldn’t be arrested within 100 miles of the border. For those of you who need a translation, that’s “open borders” by another term. Now restrictions on unlimited immigration, enforcing immigration laws on the books, even simply working for the Department of Homeland Security, apparently makes you tantamount to being a Nazi.
The left has adopted the most radical of immigration positions, that essentially anyone interested in entering the country should have the legal right to do so. This is a far cry from what Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer and even one former Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) were saying just a few years ago.
The activist elements fueling the energy in the Democratic Party have decided that borders are racist, that it’s wrong for countries to manage who crosses their borders, that we should fling the doors wide to anyone who shows up.
It would be nice if the coastal elite could get outside of their bubble and realize the rest of the country doesn’t quite agree with them. In fact, many despise the elites.
You need look no further than the election of Donald Trump, perhaps the most hardline of any of the Republicans running for President in 2016. In the words of Michael Moore, Trump’s election would be the greatest “ eff you” in the history of the world.
Remember the “Build the wall!” chants that permeated virtually every Trump rally? Republican voters had the option to choose the soft-borders policies of any of the other candidates — for example, “low-energy Jeb” Bush — but they chose the guy who made immigration a centerpiece of his campaign. And that guy then won the general election.
Instead of realizing, like the supposedly intelligent people they are, the electoral backlash to the bipartisan “globalism first” policies of our elites, Democrats and the media have doubled down. They don’t simply report the facts or opposing policies with which they disagree, and the left has gone full-bore radical: Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was literally chased out of a restaurant by screaming socialists who plan to hound her and anyone else they can attack.
Former Democratic campaign staffers are encouraging mobs to use LinkedIn to find anyone who works for DHS or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Occupy Wall Street activists tweeted out a cartoon-like diagram — since removed — showing how to stab an ICE agent and rip out his heart; the group now claims it was satire, according to news reports.
The left is not restricting its harassments and threats to only the political leadership; they’re extending it to IT workers. In the eyes of the left, if you’re not with us, you’re basically a Nazi and you’ll get what you deserve. We might be just a year past a gunman’s assassination attempt on Republican senators and congressman during baseball practice, but the left shows no signs of moderating its extremism or changing its violent, aggressive tactics. In its mind, there is no more debate: To disagree is to be evil, and if you are dehumanized and evil, you must be eradicated.
Enough is enough. Democrats and the media need to end this charade and dial back their rhetoric. It’s only a matter of time before one of their acolytes decides tweets aren’t enough, and takes it to the next level.
Pass Cruz’s bill to fix the border and then, once and for all, address immigration in a way that protects our borders and affirms national sovereignty.
